Japan praises boy who survived after abandonment in forest

TOKYO — Nearly a week after he was abandoned in the forest by his parents, the boy did not shed a tear when he was found safe Friday. The soldier who discovered him by chance in a military hut gave him two rice balls, which 7-year-old Yamato Tanooka ate ravenously. He looked a bit worn out but was "genki," the military said, using a Japanese word describing healthy children.
The boy's safe return was welcomed in a nation riveted by his disappearance and undergoing intense soul-searching about how it raises and disciplines its children.

Yamato's story, as pieced together from comments from the military and police, was admirable in resourcefulness and resilience.

His parents, trying to teach him a lesson for misbehaving and throwing rocks, made him get out of the car last Saturday on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido in a forest reputedly ridden with bears. They couldn't find him when they returned several minutes later.

Apparently walking for several kilometers, the boy found the empty hut in a military drill area and entered a door that had been left open. The longhouse-style hut had no heat or power and no food, but Yamato huddled between mattresses on the floor and drank water from the solitary faucet outside the hut for several days, local media reported.

these are not bad parents?